Learning about climate change … Thomas E. Downing Stockholm Environment Institute Oxford Integrated assessments

 Overview of issues (20 minutes)  Cognitive mapping of an integrated assessment issue (30 minutes)  Dangers in IA (20 minutes)  Conditions of application (10 minutes)  Discussion

Introduction  What have we learned from the use of Integrated Assessment Models in formulating responses to climate change?  Contributor to the first regional integrated assessment; model of the economic impact of climate change

Dangers in climate policy SustainabilityCollapseInequitable Development

Earth System Interactions n GHG emissions n Climate n Terrestrial ecosystems n Source: MIT global change programme

Understanding Earth  Penguin trials: test the waters and see if anything is happening  Lilliput principle: experimental microcosms such as Biosphere II  Eagle eye: observing Earth’s panorama from space  Minah: digital mimicry through simulation modelling After Schellnhuber, 1999, Nature

Questions...  What is an IAM?  What should IAMs do?  What needs to be done to improve IAMs?

What is IA?  IA is a process of stakeholder engagement that includes insight from models (IAMs)  Foundations in acid rain, trade and world environment models  A means to gain insight into complex environmental, economic and social interactions

What is an IAM?

Policy issues  What is the advantage of trading greenhouse gas emissions? Climate-economic integration, regional trade  How much CO2 could terrestrial ecosystems absorb? Climate-land use integration, geographic resolution  What should be the priorities for adaptation? Climate-impacts integration, local-global hierarchy, autonomous adaptation  Is technology the answer? Climate-society integration, innovation, geographic diffusion, market transformation

Integration... Who participates? Which sectors? How many scales?

IAMs IMAGE FUND DICE ICAM AIM Simulation Optimising Geographical Trade OF Targets Page EDM3 Green Miasma Rice SGM Merge3 MIT-EPPA G-Cubed CETA AS/ExM HCRA DIAM PEF PRICE SLICE Yohe ABARE

Three examples  Economic policy to abate greenhouse gas emissions  Land use change and terrestrial carbon cycles  Equity in climate change impacts

Economic policy  What are the impacts of GHG abatement policy: Trade Energy prices Capital costs and investment Transnational corporations Secondary effects  Two studies Oxford Institute for Energy Studies G-cubed

Fossil Fuels in a Changing Climate Impacts of the Kyoto Protocol and Developing Country Participation Ulrich Bartsch and Benito Müller Published by Oxford University Press,

The Oxford Model for Climate Policy Analysis (CLIMOX)

The CLIMOX Production Structure

'Sizing the Cake': Global CO 2 Energy Emissions (Gt CO 2 ) OIES BaU Kyoto 550A * 550ppm CO 2 concentrations = ‘acceptable’ GC Target Global Target: 14.4 per cent reduction from BaU 14.4%

‘Distributing the Cake’: The Problem Non-Annex I Annex I 67%74% Grandfathering Per Capita

Energy Emissions: Reductions and Assigned Amounts in 2020, % of BaU USA JPN EUM ROE ROO EIT CHN INDANI AOE LAM ROW GLOBAL Assigned Amounts Cartel Supply Actual Reductions Emission Trading induces a global emission reduction of 5 per cent over the required target

GC: 2020 Emission Mitigation Costs/Benefits USARest of OECD JapanEUEITMENALatin America ANIChinaRoWIndia 1995 $ bn Cost of Domestic Action JI/CDM Permit Sales Surplus Permit Sales Permit Acquisition Net Mitigation Benefits/Costs (+/-)

USAJapan EUR-OECD EIT ChinaIndia ANI MENA LAM ROW BaU Real Income Index; GC BaUGC Real- Income-Per-Capita Index BaUGC 1995

Effect of international trading on permit prices, 2010, $/MTC Source: G-cubed Model, W. McKibben

Land use  Shifts in biomes  Carbon storage and sequestration  Methane, nitrous oxides  Agroecological potential  Species and biodiversity  Water  Health  Secondary effects

Scenarios of land use change Source: IMAGE2 Model

Equity in impacts Notes: 1% PRTP discounting. Source: ExternE Project.

Cognitive issue mapping  Select an issue: Carbon sequestration in managed ecosystems Damage valuation of climate change impacts Others  Brainstorming of elements  Clustering  Mapping relationships  Ideas for data, models and analysis

What should IAMs do? Economic growth Sustainable environments Social equity

What should IAMs do?

Dangers in IAM  IA wars: “My clients appreciate my model”  Wrong question: “Ask not what you need but what I can do”  Anchoring: “Don’t trust the numbers, IAMs only provide insight”  Polarisation: “Criticise my wife but don’t mess with my model”  Complexity: “Read the fine detail”  Restricted discourse: “Talk the talk, walk the walk”  Symbolic structuration: “Any model that mediates demand through prices means that you have to raise prices.”

What needs to be done?  Procedures for evaluating IAMs Model representation: what is reality? Evaluating changing institutions: how will future societies evolve to cope with global change? Users and uses: how to foster insight?

Conditions of application  Model representation Natural systems Resolution and scaling Validation Decision agents Agent motivation  For example: Linking resource management decisions to macro- economy and feedback from the environment

Agents in IAM

Conditions of application  Changing institutions Societal structure Cultural norms For example:  Technological innovation and diffusion  Market transformation  Sustainable consumption

A relational strategy...

Conditions of application  User/policy context Stakeholder participation Hypothesis testing Verification Transparency Documentation  New processes of science-policy formulation?

Learning about climate change …Integrated Assessments